“You shouldn’t feel as though you have to go tonight, you know,” Ginny said, looking up at me.

“I don’t,” I said firmly.

If she could tell I was lying, she didn’t say anything.

Hugo and his girlfriend Alice were standing over by the refreshments table, feeding each other canapés.

“Please let me throw one at them,” I pleaded to James.

“No chance,” he said flatly. “I already have one canapé-throwing girlfriend to my name, I don’t need another.”

“James has told you he loves you, hasn’t he?”

“Well, it’s not really a thing we do…”

“Honey, he bought you a pub, of course he loves you!” Brigid paused. “I wish Freddie would buy me a pub.”

“How are my favourite girls today?”

“Mamá’s mad at me. I told her I can’t visit her for more than a weekend, and then I told her she can’t visit me, and then she said your prospects are rubbish.”

“I can see her point, teaching is a criminally underrated profession,” James said.

I punched him lightly in the arm. “You’re an idiot.”

"I know."

“It’s all about marketing, Carly-”

“Carla!”

“-people will come from far and wide to see the Boy Who Lived playing Quidditch again! I thought that was what you wanted?”

“Well, yes, but I don’t think people need reminding about Harry’s credentials, he’s kind of a big deal as it is.”

"You can’t just stand up at a UN meeting and say ‘hi guys, we want to share our powers with you all and stop being isolationist,’ like we’re bloody Wakanda or something."

“Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the most highly anticipated Quidditch match of the century!”

That was a bold statement, I reflected, given that England had won the World Cup less than two years ago. But then again, given the entire wizarding community’s – frankly weird – hero-worship of the entire Weasley family, perhaps Louis was on the money.

“This is the biggest move we’ve made in centuries. If we get it wrong, hell will rain down on us all.”